the A- Z of cOoL
"ice cool in the afternoon."
I - L
Idle Hands, The Incredibles, The Job, Angelina Jolie, Jungle Fever, Jurassic 5, Kill Bill, The Killer, David Krumholtz, Kung Fu Hustle, The Last Boy Scout, The Last Seduction, Elmore Leonard, Richard Linklater, Ron Livingston, Lost, Lost Highway, David Lynch
* = latest entries are highlighted
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IDLE HANDS (1999)
starring: Devon Sawa, Seth Green, Elden Henson, Jessica Alba, Vivica A. Fox, Jack Noseworthy
director: Rodman Flender genre: horror comedy
THE INCREDIBLES (2005) http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/incredibles/
voices: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee, Brad Bird, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger
director: Brad Bird genre: animated action comedy
THE JOB (2001- 2002) http://abc.go.com/primetime/thejob/index.html
starring: Denis Leary (Mike McNeil), Bill Nunn (Terrence 'Pip' Philips), Lenny Clarke (Frank Harrigan), Diane Farr (Jan Hendrich), Adam Ferrara (Tommy Fanetti) John Ortiz (Ruben Sommariba), Julian Acosta (Al Rodriguez)
creator: Denis Leary genre: cop comedy drama
why it's cool: Short though each episode may be (under 20 mins), what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. Best known to British audiences for his roles in Stallone/Snipes actioner 'Demolition Man' and Pierce Brosnan's 'The Thomas Crown Affair' remake, Leary is a popular stand-up comedian across the Atlantic; and justifiably so. The words 'comic genius' spring to mind. Leary carries each scene with so much ease, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is a documentary. Along with 'The Office' and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', this was undoubtedly the most realistic comedy show on tv. But as with most great shows, it got cancelled. Season One featured guest appearances from Gina Gershon and Liz Hurley (playing themselves).
number of series: 2 (19 episodes) shown on: BBC Choice availability: available on Region 1 dvd
ANGELINA JOLIE http://www.wutheringjolie.com/
Next to Liv Tyler , Angelina Jolie is the only actress of her generation who can thank her famous father for the lips that have become her trademark. The actress was born Angelina Jolie Voight to the pillow-lipped Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.
Raised mostly by her mother after her parents divorced while she was still a baby, Jolie moved around a lot with her mother and brother. She also did a fair amount of traveling as a professional model, living in such places as London, New York, and Los Angeles before settling for a time in New York as a student at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and New York University, where she first started acting in theater productions. The fledgling actress soon moved on to film with a small role in 1993's Cyborg 2 , followed in 1995 by her turn as a computer hacker in the more widely seen Hackers . The film gave her her first taste of recognition, as well as an introduction to Trainspotting 's Jonny Lee Miller , to whom she was married for a short time.
After appearing in a number of mediocre films, Jolie finally hit it big in 1997 with her Golden Globe-winning performance as George Wallace 's wife in the highly acclaimed TV movie George Wallace . The role, coupled with her Emmy-nominated performance in the title role of HBO 's Gia , provided Jolie with a new level of professional respect and recognition. She was soon appearing on talk shows and in magazines, answering questions about everything from her multiple tattoos to her famous father to her brief marriage.
She was also netting roles in high-profile projects: In 1998 Jolie headlined an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery , Gena Rowlands , Anthony Edwards , Gillian Anderson , Ryan Phillippe , and Madeline Stowe in Playing By Heart . The following year, she was part of another high-voltage cast in Mike Newell 's Pushing Tin , co-starring alongside John Cusack , Billy Bob Thornton , and Cate Blanchett . Although the film was neither a critical nor a financial success, it did little to diminish the rapid ascent of the career of the actress, who was in hot demand for projects that would further elevate her already rising star. In 2000, Jolie 's star received one of its greatest boosts to date when the actress won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a volatile mental patient in Girl, Interrupted . Later that year, her personal life also got a boost in the form of her April marriage to Billy Bob Thornton .
Onscreen, Jolie was hard to miss in 2000. She starred in a number of films, including the crime thriller Gone in Sixty Seconds , in which she co-starred as a car thief alongside Nicolas Cage , and Original Sin , a thriller that featured her as the bad-seed bride of a Cuban tycoon ( Antonio Banderas ). If she was hard to miss in 2000, Jolie was impossible to escape in 2001 with her turn as shapely video-game adventuress Lara Croft in the long anticipated film adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video-game franchise. Carrying on the tradition of video-game movies that are light on plot but heavy on the action, Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life (2003) scored with summer audiences and quickly shot to number one at the box office despite disparaging reviews citing an incoherent story line, unlike Life or Something Like It , the 2002 romantic comedy-drama that critics and audiences alike would rather not have seen.
On July 18th, 2002, Jolie filed for divorce from Billy Bob Thornton , claiming that their priorities no longer meshed after having adopted a child. Though the famously quirky couple were no longer, Angelina 's film schedule remained hectic. In 2003 she would play a rich-girl-turned-humanitarian in Beyond Borders , while 2004 saw a host of parts for Jolie , including a role in Oliver Stone 's Alexander , an epic biography of Alexander the Great starring Colin Farrell , as well as a turn alongside fellow Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow in Sky Captain: The World of Tomorrow , and a role as a tough FBI agent in the thriller Taking Lives . Finally, Jolie closed out the year by lending her voice to Dreamworks' animated kid-flick Shark's Tale . In 2005 she starred alongside Brad Pitt in Doug Liman actioner Mr & Mrs Smith.
Filmography
Hackers (95), Playing God (97), Gia (98), Playing By Heart (98), Pushing Tin (99), The Bone Collector (99), Girl, Interrupted (99), Gone in Sixty Seconds (00), Tomb Raider (01), Original Sin (01), Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (03), Beyond Borders (03), Taking Lives (04), Shark Tale (04), Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow (04), Alexander (04), Mr & Mrs Smith (05), The Good Shepherd (05)
JUNGLE FEVER (1991)
starring: Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra, Spike Lee, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Samuel L. Jackson, Lonette McKee, John Turturro, Frank Vincent, Anthony Quinn, Halle Berry
director: Spike Lee genre: romantic drama
JURASSIC 5 http://www.jurassic5.com/
Though there's actually six of them, Jurassic 5 got everything else right on their self-titled debut EP. Part of the new rap underground of the late '90s (along with Company Flow, Mos Def, Doctor Octagon, and Sir Menelik), the sextet - rappers Marc 7even, Chali 2na, Zaakir, and Akil, plus producers Cut Chemist and DJ Nu-Mark - came together in 1993 at the Los Angeles cafe/venue named the Good Life. The six members were part of two different crews, Rebels of Rhythm and Unity Committee; after collaborating on a track, they combined into Jurassic 5 and debuted in 1995 with the "Unified Rebellion" single for TVT Records. At the tail end of 1997, the Jurassic 5 EP appeared and was hailed by critics as one of the freshest debuts of the year (if not the decade). Both Cut Chemist and Chali 2na are also part of the Latin-hop collective Ozomatli, while Chemist himself recorded several mix-tapes plus the wide-issue album Future Primitive Soundsession (with Shortkut from Invisibl Skratch Piklz). The year 2000 found the group on tour with Fiona Apple and on the Warped Festival, just in time for the release of Quality Control that summer. Live work continued during 2000-2001, and a second record (Power in Numbers) appeared by the end of 2002.
Discography
Jurassic 5 EP (98), Ozomatli LP (98), Quality Control (00), Power in Numbers (02), Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow (02), DJ Format - Music For The Mature B-Boy (03), Ozomatli - Street Signs (04), Chali 2na - Fish Market (04), Untitled J5 Album (05)
KILL BILL (2003 - 2004) http://www.killbill.com/
starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Vivica A. Fox, Gordon Liu, Sonny Chiba, Michael Parks, Chiaka Kuriyama, Julie Dreyfus, Samuel L. Jackson
director: Quentin Tarantino genre: pop samurai spaghetti western revenge epic
THE KILLER (1989)
voices: Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee, Sally Yeh, Kenneth Tsang
director: John Woo genre: action thriller
DAVID KRUMHOLTZ
One of the more accomplished young actors to be immortalized on celluloid in the late 1990s, David Krumholtz has distinguished himself with both talent and the sort of unconventional looks that allow him to be both dashing and nebbish at the same time.
A native of New York City, where he was born May 15, 1978, Krumholtz began his professional career at the age of 13, when he starred opposite Judd Hirsch in the Broadway production of Conversations with My Father . He went on to make his film debut in 1993, appearing as an obnoxious child actor in the Michael J. Fox comedy Life with Mikey . That same year, he had a small role as Wednesday Addams' ( Christina Ricci ) socially stunted love interest in Addams Family Values .
Krumholtz's first truly memorable film role was that of Francis Davenport, the Upper East Side brat who gets Katie Holmes drunk in Ang Lee 's The Ice Storm (1997). The following year, he earned critical praise as Natasha Lyonne 's older brother in Tamara Jenkins ' The Slums of Beverly Hills , a role made particularly indelible by the scene in which the character belts out Sinatra while wearing nothing but his tighty whities. Krumholtz's profile further increased when he was cast in Ten Things I Hate About You (1999), one of a large crop of bubblegum teensploitation comedies to stampede through multiplexes during the late '90s. The film was one of the genre's more critically and commercially successful excursions, and it provided a nice complement to Krumholtz's other film that year, Barry Levinson 's critically praised Liberty Heights.
Filmography
Addams Family Values (93), The Ice Storm (97), Slums of Beverly Hills (98), The Closer (tv: 98), 10 Things I Hate About You (99), Liberty Heights (99), Freaks & Geeks (tv: 00), ER (tv: 00), The Mexican (01), Sidewalks of New York (01), Undeclared (tv: 01 -02), You Stupid Man (02), The Lyon's Den (tv: 03 - 04), Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (04), Ray (04), Numb3rs (tv: 05 - ?), Max & Grace (05), Serenity (05), Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (06)
KUNG FU HUSTLE (2004) http://www.kungfuhustle.com/
starring: Stephen Chow
director: Stephen Chow genre: chop socky action comedy gangster western
THE LAST BOY SCOUT
starring: Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Chelsea Field, Danielle Harris, Halle Berry, Bruce McGill
director: Tony Scott genre: action comedy
THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994)
starring: Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, J.T. Walsh, Bill Nunn
director: John Dahl genre: sexy black comedy noir thriller
ELMORE LEONARD http://www.elmoreleonard.com/
Without question, one of the 20th century's premier writers of crime fiction, Elmore Leonard 's fascinatingly seedy characters and penchant for snappy, natural dialogue has found the longtime writer climbing from pulp Western author to one of the most sought after scribes of the Hollywood scene. Though it would take nearly two decades for filmmakers to accurately capture the gritty, but humorous, tone that he had mastered through his many years putting pen to paper, the runaway success of director Barry Sonnenfeld 's spot-on adaptation of Leonard 's novel Get Shorty in 1995 prompted a slew of films in which the author's unique tone was accurately translated to celluloid.
Born the son of a General Motors location scout in New Orleans in 1925, his family moved frequently during Elmore 's early years. His imagination fueled by newspaper headlines detailing the exploits of such desperadoes as Bonnie and Clyde , a permanent move to Detroit during the 1934 World Series also spurred an interest in sports that would find young Leonard (nicknamed "Dutch" by his friends) running the gridiron at the University of Detroit High School after receiving his primary education at Catholic school. Leonard often credited his early, Jesuit education as a prime factor in his learning how to "think," and following his high school graduation in 1944, he joined the Seabees and shipped out for the Admiralty Islands. Returning from the South Seas to major in English at the University of Detroit, Leonard became enamored with the writings of Ernest Hemingway and Richard Bissell . The seed had been planted. After graduating from college, Leonard married and landed a job as a copy boy at the Campbell-Ewald advertising agency, and though he would soon be penning ads for Chevrolet, the prospect of writing commercial fiction proved too tempting to resist. Initially penning Westerns due to market demand, Leonard 's story Trail of the Apache was published in Argosy Magazine in December 1951 -- marking the author's first published work.
Frequently rising two hours before work to begin writing, this period yielded 30 pulp Western stories and five novels, two of which ( 3:10 to Yuma and The Tall T ) would be made into successful Hollywood films in the 1950s. When the Western market dried up in the early '60s due to the encroachment of television, the burgeoning author quit his job in advertising and take up writing full time, a decision that Leonard ultimately went back on in order to support his growing family. A turning point of sorts came when Leonard 's novel Hombre was turned into a successful Hollywood feature staring a young Paul Newman . Soon thereafter, he was writing his first crime novel, The Big Bounce , and honing his screenwriting skills. Adapting many of his novels into screenplays, the practice proved essential in funding Leonard 's fiction writing in the ensuing years, and it was this windfall that found Leonard penning crime novels (often set in Detroit) that would gain him a loyal cult following thanks to his sharp eye for street detail and keen dialogue instincts. After the publication of his best-selling novels La Bravo and Glitz , Leonard landed on the cover of Newsweek in 1984 and was christened the " Dickens of Detroit." Soon, Hollywood producers were clamoring to adapt the works of this "overnight success."
Although subsequent high-profile releases such as Stick (1985) and 52 Pick-Up (1986) managed to capture the grittiness of Leonard 's writings, they failed to accurately translate his somewhat quirky sense of humor and proved only moderately successful -- not that that stopped eager producers from trying. In 1995, Sonnenfeld finally struck the right tone with Get Shorty . An infectiously fun journey into the mind of a criminal with Hollywood aspirations, the film proved an enormous success due, in no small part, to star John Travolta 's show-stealing performance as protagonist Chili Palmer . Followed in 1997 and 1998 by Quentin Tarantino 's Jackie Brown and Steven Soderbergh 's Out of Sight , respectively, both films also succeeded in accurately bringing Leonard 's unique style to the screen fully in tact. As the millennium turned and Leonard 's Out of Sight character Karen Sisco received her own eponymous television series, Hollywood kept plugging away with such adaptations as The Big Bounce , Tishomingo Blues and, of course, the Get Shorty sequel, Be Cool (all scheduled for release in 2004). Meanwhile, the tireless author kept releasing novels at a pace that suggested he rarely sleeps.
RICHARD LINKLATER
Self-taught writer/director Richard Linklater was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. Typically setting each of his movies during one 24-hour period, Linklater 's work explored what he dubbed "the youth rebellion continuum," focusing in fine detail on generational rites and mores with rare compassion and understanding while definitively capturing the twenty-something culture of his era through a series of nuanced, illuminating ensemble pieces which introduced any number of talented young actors into the Hollywood firmament.
Born in Houston, TX, in 1962, Linklater suspended his educational career at Sam Houston State University to work on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He subsequently relocated to the state's capital of Austin, where he founded a film society and began work on his debut short film, 1987's It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books . Three years later he released the sprawling Slacker , an insightful, virtually plotless look at '90s youth culture that became a favorite on the festival circuit prior to earning vast acclaim at Sundance in 1991. Upon its commercial release, the movie, made for less than 23,000 dollars, became the subject of considerable mainstream media attention, with the term "slacker" becoming a much-overused catch-all tag employed to affix a name and identity to America's disaffected youth culture.
Landing with Universal , Linklater next filmed 1993's Dazed and Confused , a generational update of George Lucas ' American Graffiti set during the last day of high school in 1976. Despite massive studio interference, the movie maintained Linklater 's unique sensibilities while also proving his ability to work within the confines of more mainstream narrative structures, and went on to become a critical success as well as a cult favorite. Switching gears, the director traveled to Vienna, Austria, to film 1995's Before Sunrise , a sweet romantic comedy which bypassed the impressionistic textures of his previous work to place a new focus on character development. After making a brief voice-over appearance in the animated hit Beavis and Butt-Head Do America , Linklater next directed 1997's SubUrbia , an adaptation of Eric Bogosian 's play of the same name. Though it bore a strong similarity to Linklater 's previous work -- Slacker and Dazed and Confused in particular -- SubUrbia largely abandoned those films' improvisational style in favor of a more faithful script interpretation, which garnered mixed notices with critics.
Linklater 's first foray into major-studio filmmaking, The Newton Boys , followed a year later. The true-life, Bonnie and Clyde -esque tale of a group of bank-robbing brothers, it shared little in common with the director's other films -- aside from the casting of Linklater pals Ethan Hawke and Matthew McConaughey as angsty young Texans. Dumped into the late-summer marketplace, the plodding, straightforward genre film did little to ignite either critical or box-office attention.
Recoiling from the Hollywood filmmaking community, Linklater struck out on his own with two micro-budgeted projects, shot on-the-quick in digital video. The first of these was the most ambitious: Waking Life followed a philosophical, non-narrative structure similar to Slacker , but with all of its characters and conversations enhanced in post-production using an innovative, "rotoscoped" computer animation technique. The other film, Tape , was a spur-of-the-moment project based on a play brought to Linklater 's attention by Hawke , who enlisted friend Robert Sean Leonard and then-wife Uma Thurman to co-star. Confining its action to one seedy hotel room, the film allowed Linklater the freedom to experiment with a variety of takes, angles, and points of view he might not have otherwise tried on a more expensive format. Given warm receptions at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival , both films received lauded art-house runs later that year, even as Life was denied a Best Animated Feature nomination by the Academy.
Linklater found himself willing to give Hollywood another try in 2003 when presented with Mike White 's script for School of Rock , a fish-out-of-water comedy starring Jack Black as an unreliable, would-be substitute teacher who commandeers a class of sixth-graders. Reworking the script and putting his cast through extensive rehearsals, Linklater added an element of off-the-cuff realism to the formula tale, and in the process garnered some of the best reviews - and easily the best box-office returns - of his career.
Filmography
Slacker (91), Dazed & Confused (93), Before Sunrise (95), SubUrbia (96), The Newton Boys (98), Waking Life (01), Tape (01), School of Rock (03), Before Sunset (04), Bad News Bears (05), A Scanner Darkly (06), Fast Food Nation (06), The Smoker (07)
RON LIVINGSTON http://livingstonsite.tripod.com/
Ron Livingston first came to the attention of film audiences in 1996, when he portrayed one of Jon Favreau 's Rat Pack-obsessed cronies in Swingers . Over the next few years, the actor began taking more and more leading roles, earning recognition and making a name for himself in the process. A graduate of Yale, where he received a B.A. in Theatre Studies and English Literature, Livingston began acting at the Williamstown Theatre Festival while in college. After graduation, he headed to Chicago, where he performed at the Goodman Theatre. Livingston made his film debut in the 1992 Dolly Parton comedy Straight Talk , and the following year he had a supporting role in the independent film Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade .
After catching the eyes of audiences in the cult-hit Swingers , Livingston began to take on increasingly more prominent film roles. In 1999 he could be seen in no less than three films, beginning with the comedy Office Space , in which he had the starring role. While the film performed theatrically, it slowly gained an audience on home-video and was later regarded as a modern comedy classic.
In 2001, Livingston turned to the small screen, first in the Stephen Spielberg -produced miniseries Band of Brothers , then with a short-lived starring role on ABC 's The Practice . He could be seen in theaters again in 2002, stealing scenes as a smarmy agent in the critically-acclaimed Adaptation and returned to television the following year, with a recurring role as one of Carrie's boyfriends on Sex and the City .
Livingston 's next starring film role would come in 2004, when he played opposite Brittany Murphy in the romantic-comedy Little Black Book .
Filmography
Swingers (96), Office Space (99), Body Shots (99), Beat (00), Band of Brothers (tv: 01), The Practice (tv: 01 - 02), Adaptation (02), Sex & the City (tv: 02 - 03), The Cooler (03), Little Black Book (04), Pretty Persuasion (05), Relative Strangers (05), Holly (05), American Crude (05)
LOST (2004 - ?) http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index.html http://www.lost-media.com/ http://www.lost-tv.com/
starring: Naveen Andrews (Sayid), Emilie de Ravin (Claire Littleton), Matthew Fox (Jack Shepard), Jorge Garcia ("Hurley" Reyes), Maggie Grace (Shannon Rutherford), Josh Holloway (James Sawyer), Malcolm David Kelley ('Walt' Lloyd), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin Kwon), Yunjin Kim (Sun Kwon), Evangeline Lilly (Kate Ryan), Dominic Monaghan (Charlie Pace), Terry O'Quinn (John Locke), Harold Perrineau (Michael Dawson), Ian Somerhalder (Boone Carlisle)
creators: Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof genre: mystery adventure drama
why it's cool: The survivors of a plane crash are forced to live with each other on a remote island, a dangerous new world that poses unique threats of its own. Cool concept, don't you think? Its also the most consistently surprising show I've seen for a long time - each episode revealing a little bit more about the survivors (of which, there isn't one single character here who isn't interesting) - and the most unpredictable show since "Alias" (co-incidentally, also created by Lost alumni J.J. Abrams). As this fantastic new drama is still yet to cross the Atlantic, I won't say much else. Only that the show is currently pencilled into Channel 4's schedule for August 2005.
number of series: 1 (25 episodes) (so far) shown on: Channel 4 availability: Season One available on Region 1 dvd
LOST HIGHWAY (1997)
starring: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Richard Pryor, Giovanni Ribisi, Gary Busey, Robert Loggia
director: David Lynch genre: noir mystery horror thriller
DAVID LYNCH http://www.davidlynch.com/
David Lynch is the renaissance man of modern American filmmaking, an acclaimed and widely recognized writer/director as well as television producer, photographer, cartoonist, composer, and graphic artist. Walking the tightrope between the mainstream and the avant-garde with remarkable balance and skill, Lynch brings to the screen a singularly dark and disturbing view of reality, a nightmare world punctuated by defining moments of extreme violence, bizarre comedy , and strange beauty. More than any other arthouse filmmaker of his era, he has enjoyed considerable mass acceptance and has helped to redefine commercial tastes.
Born January 20, 1946, in Missoula, MO, David Keith Lynch grew up the archetypal all-American boy: The son of a U.S. Department of Agriculture research scientist, he was raised throughout the Pacific Northwest, eventually becoming an Eagle Scout and even serving as an usher at John F. Kennedy 's Presidential inauguration. Originally intending to become a graphic artist, Lynch enrolled in the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1963, falling under the sway of expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka and briefly studying in Europe. By the early weeks of 1966, he had relocated to Philadelphia, where he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and began his first experimentation with film.
The violence and decay which greeted Lynch in Philadelphia proved to have a profound and long-lasting effect, as his work became increasingly obsessed with exploring the dark corners of the human experience. From his first experimental student film (1967's "moving painting" Six Men Getting Sick , which its creator described as "57 seconds of growth and fire, and three seconds of vomit") onward, his vision grew more and more fascinated with the seedy underbelly of everyday life. Awarded an American Film Institute Grant, The Alphabet , a partially animated 16 mm color film, followed later in the year, but Lynch soon turned away from the cinema to renew his focus on fine art. His next short film, The Grandmother , did not appear until 1970.
In 1972, Lynch began work on his first feature effort, Eraserhead . A surreal nightmare borne of the director's own fears and anxieties of fatherhood, the film took over five years to complete, finally premiering in March of 1977. An instant cult classic, it was also a tremendous critical success, launching Lynch to the forefront of avant-garde filmmaking. Financed with the aid of boyhood friend Jack Fisk , a noted production designer as well as the husband of actress Sissy Spacek , Eraserhead not only established Lynch 's singular worldview but also cemented the team of actors and technicians who would continue to define the texture of his work for years to come, including cinematographer Frederick Elmes , sound designer Alan Splet , and actor Jack Nance .
The success of Eraserhead brought Lynch to the attention of Mel Brooks , who was seeking projects to produce besides his own comedies . He recruited Lynch to helm 1980's The Elephant Man , the tale of John Merrick , a hideously deformed member of 19th century British society. Complete with a cast including such celebrated talent as John Hurt , Anthony Hopkins , Anne Bancroft , and John Gielgud , the film marked Lynch 's acceptance into the Hollywood mainstream, even netting an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture as well as a nod for Best Director. After launching the weekly comic strip The Angriest Dog in the World in 1982, he began adapting the Frank Herbert science fiction novel Dune for Dino De Laurentiis . The first of Lynch 's films to star actor Kyle MacLachlan , who quickly emerged as the director's cinematic alter ego, the 1984 big-budget effort was a commercial and critical disaster -- Lynch himself even disowned the project after it was re-edited for release without his consent.
Lynch had agreed to make Dune for De Laurentiis in order to film 1986's Blue Velvet , a long-simmering tale exploring the dark underbelly of small-town life. Insisting upon complete artistic control, he made the picture for under seven million dollars, casting actors ranging from MacLachlan to model Isabella Rossellini to Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell , former stars whose popularity had suffered in recent years. The completed film was an unqualified masterpiece, a hypnotically violent creepshow which earned Lynch his second Oscar nomination as well as boosting the careers of all involved. Hopper , in particular, won raves for his bravura turn as the sociopathic killer Frank Booth , the movie's vision of evil incarnate.
At the peak of his powers, Lynch turned away from motion pictures to concentrate on other forms of media. First, in 1989 he staged Industrial Symphony No. 1 , an avant-musical performance piece created with composer Angelo Badalmenti . Then, in 1990 he mounted his most commercially successful work, the ABC television series Twin Peaks . A surrealist soap opera created in conjunction with former Hill Street Blues producer Mark Frost , Twin Peaks became a cultural phenomenon, spurred by the mystery of "Who killed Laura Palmer ?," the series' central plot thread. Suddenly, Lynch was a cultural figure of considerable renown, a filmmaker perhaps more famous than any of his actors. His fame was bolstered when his fifth feature, 1990's hallucinatory road movie Wild at Heart , grabbed the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival . He even appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
As quickly as the media had built Lynch up, however, they tore him down. Wild at Heart received mixed reviews from American critics, while Twin Peaks was scuttled off to a poorly suited Saturday night slot, leading to its demise in early 1991. Two other Lynch -created series, the documentary anthology American Chronicles and the situation comedy On the Air , also met with premature deaths. In 1992, he released Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me , a feature-film prequel to the television series. An ambitious, fractured work featuring Sheryl Lee as the ill-fated Laura Palmer , the picture was savaged by critics, leaving a wounded Lynch to plot his next move. He spent the next few years away from the limelight. Apart from 1994's Images , a book collection of photographs and paintings, little was seen or heard from him for close to half a decade.
Finally, in 1997, Lynch resurfaced with the enigmatic Lost Highway , another experimental, dream-like effort that polarized viewers' responses. He enjoyed more renown in 1999 when The Straight Story was released at the Cannes Film Festival . The film, based on a true story, marked a departure from Lynch 's previous subject matter; the simple tale of a man ( Richard Farnsworth ) who gets on his tractor and drives 350 miles to see his brother, it offered few of the dark undertones and twisted subtext that had come to be known as the director's trademarks. It was released at Cannes to generally positive reviews -- and earned Farnsworth his second Oscar nomination -- causing more than a few to observe that Lynch was once again back on track.
That notion would continue with 2001's Hollywood-set thriller-melodrama , Mulholland Drive . Like Twin Peaks , the project was originally developed with ABC as a series pilot; unlike Lynch 's first foray into television, however, Mulholland was scrapped before it could make a prime-time premiere. Although Lynch tinkered with the two-hour pilot several times in an attempt to satisfy the network brass, they remained unsatisfied. The frustrated director then turned to European financing in order to sculpt a feature film out of his material. Premiering at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival , Mulholland garnered much acclaim, snagging Lynch the fest's Best Director award (which he shared with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There ), and cementing his career resurgence.
Filmography
Eraserhead (77), The Elephant Man (80), Dune (84), Blue Velvet (86), Twin Peaks (tv: 90 - 91), Wild at Heart (90), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (92), Lost Highway (97), The Straight Story (99), Mulholland Drive (01), Rabbits (02), Inland Empire (06)